Steady growth of human population, accompanied by ever increasing levels of their activity, inevitably leads to increased demands for and consumption of more and more energy. Our energy producing capacities today would be sufficient for foreseeable future if only the losses in our present mode of energy production and distribution can somehow be curtailed or minimized. One of the quick and obvious ways in this direction would be to develop the technology to efficiently store the already produced electrical energy in existing power plants during the low demand periods and again release it in peak demand periods.
Present day energy storage systems consist of two major modes of operation: one, transformation of the already produced electrical energy into a different form of energy (static or kinetic) for storage, and transforming said stored energy into the electrical energy ready for distribution; the other stores electrical energy directly, without transformation, ready for distribution. Among former, Compressed Air Storage System, Flywheels, Pumped Hydro Storage, to name a few, are out of the scope of this invention. In the latter group, secondary batteries were given a lot of the attention by the industry due to their very high energy storage capacity and much higher energy interconversion efficiencies than the systems from the former group.
On the other hand, inherently slow chemical or electrochemical reaction rates, mass transfer, very large amounts of stored chemicals, potential of hazardous chemical spills, are some of the familiar problems that other battery systems have to cope with as well. As an example, after the Regenesys™ electrical energy storage system, using the electrochemical reaction between Na-tribromide and Na-polysulfide, reached a full commercial level and then, when multiple plants of 10 to 20-Mwh capacity were being built, all further commercial activity and development was abruptly terminated and abandoned. Most likely reasons for exiting, what initially appeared as a lucrative market, seem to be related to serious environmental and safety concerns about storing rather large quantities of potentially harmful materials.
Plate capacitors and supercapacitors on the other hand, store electrical energy electrostatically by polarizing a dielectric material between plate electrodes or by polarizing an electrolytic solution, respectively. There are no chemical reactions involved in either type of capacitor energy storage mechanism and charge-discharge cycles are fast and highly reversible, allowing for capacitors to have a long life under repeated and prolonged use.
Though supercapacitors may also find a place in our voltage cascading arrays, the subject of this invention is primarily concerned with plate capacitors, where high voltage is used to pack large amounts of energy for storage, according to the equation: E=½CV2, where E is Energy (in joules), C is capacitance (in farads) and V is electrical potential between plate electrodes (in volts). Consequently, every time the voltage is doubled, the amount of energy stored is quadrupled.
The simplest device for storing electric charge is a capacitor, which consists of two conductor plates, each storing the opposite charges, separated by an insulator or dielectric. A variety of parameters influence the respective capacity, that is, a measure of the amount of energy that can be condensed between the electrodes of a capacitor. The following are some of these parameters:    a) The effectiveness of dielectric properties of the used materials determines how much charge a capacitor is able to store and it depends on the material the dielectric is made of. The ratio of the electric field strength in a vacuum (∈0) to that with a dielectric medium (∈) is called the relative permittivity (∈r) or better known by previously used term, dielectric constant (κ).∈(or κ)=E0/E, where E0≦E∈(or κ)≧1    b) The capacitance (C) of a capacitor is a measure of how much potential (V in volts) appears across the plates for a given charge (Q):C=Q/V If a charge (Q) of 1 coulomb causes a potential of 1 volt across the plates, then the capacitance (C) is 1 farad (F). Based on relative permittivity (∈r), the capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor can be derived as:C=∈0∈rA/D A=surface area of the plate            D=distance between plates            c) The energy stored in a charged capacitor (in joules) is given by:E=½CV2             From the above equation it follows that a total amount of energy stored is proportional to the square of the potential across the plates.            d) An extremely important property of dielectric materials, used in capacitors, is the dielectric strength, defined as a maximum potential gradient that material can withstand without breakdown. Practically, the dielectric strength is reported as the breakdown voltage, divided by the distance between electrodes, separated by the dielectric. If the voltage across a dielectric insulator becomes too high, the intensity of the electric field may cause sudden collapse of the dielectric medium, i.e. dielectric breakdown (corona) takes effect.    e) The inefficiency of an insulating material under ac conditions is measured by a dissipation factor (σ), defined as a degree of dielectric loss, due to a dissipation of energy in the form of heat.    f) The voltage across the plates of a capacitor changes during charging and discharging, resulting in electrical current (i), where:i=Cdv/dt     g) Dealing with capacitors that store huge amounts of energy may inevitably involve problems of extremely high electric currents. Super conductive materials are therefore considered logical for construction of large capacitative devices, since extremely low or no resistance at all, will prevent energy losses.
All of the elements listed above have to be rigorously taken into account when building a capacitor, especially one that is intended for the storage of huge amounts of electrical charge, such as found in applications for power plants: storing excess energy during low demand periods, and later supplying the grid at critical times of a high demand. In short, storing energy that at present time is simply wasted, dissipated as heat and never used for anything, would become possible, if only suitable and reliable capacitors can be built.
It is evident that merely fifteen years ago the material science plainly did not exists at the level necessary to provide materials required for building powerful capacitors economically on a large scale. Only expensive and heavy high capacity devices, used mainly in high energy physics applications were available when we first conceived the idea of large scale capacitative energy storage system. The real quantum leap in material science, related to electrotechnical field, occurred with the discovery of high temperature superconductive copper based oxides. These oxides belong to a large family of materials, with crystal structures related minerals named perovskites. At room temperature these copper containing oxides are insulators, but when cooled down to liquid nitrogen temperatures (80 to 120 K) such insulators at some point become superconductive. This important discovery triggered an intense research and development in material science. Especially captivating results were related to structure and fascinating properties of perovskites, leading several years later to the discovery of colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) found in some manganese based oxides. Most recently certain titanium based oxides with perovskite structure, exhibited giant dielectric permitivities never before observed.
In addition to novel inorganic, mineral materials, a number of new organic materials have come on stream, with diverse properties ranging from very low to high conductivities, high polarizabilities (resulting in high dielectric permittivity), high dielectric strength and so on. Soon, a quest to build a very high capacity device is going to become a reality; thanks to new materials it is going to be possible to condense extremely large amounts of electrical charge into rather small volume of space.
In summary, the effectiveness of a capacitor is contingent on parameters a) to g) listed above, first, as it pertains to properties of the dielectric material, and second pertaining to the design and geometry of basic elements of a capacitor:
A) Function of Properties of Dielectric Materials                the capacitance (C) is directly proportional to relative permittivity (∈r):C=∈0·∈rA/D         the energy stored (in Joules) in a charged capacitor, with capacitance (C), is directly proportional to the square of potential (V) in volts, between the electrode plates:E=½CV2         dielectric strength (maximum potential between plates that dielectric material can withstand without breakdown)        
B) Function of Design and Geometry                capacitance (C) is directly proportional to the surface area (A) of the plates;        
Capacitance is inversely proportional to the distance (D) between the conductive plates, enclosing a dielectric material between them.
To build a capacitor capable of storing enormous quantities of electrical energy, as envisioned in our accompanying invention, one has to utilize the latest achievements in material science and theoretical understanding of how a design and geometry may optimize the effectiveness of these, state of the art materials and their composites.
An exemplary capacitor will be constructed of materials that show maximum performance for each basic element of a capacitor: material displaying giant dielectric permittivity will be used as dielectric, high temperature superconductors will be considered as electrode plates material, materials displaying colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) and ultra low conductivity materials can serve as components of composites displaying very high dielectric strength properties.
Materials with properties as listed above would then allow optimal geometric configuration, such as the smallest possible distance between plates on account of high dielectric strength. Consequently, high capacitance and high potential will result, with no random dielectric breakdown occurring.
Obviously, a number of compromises will have to be considered. First that comes to mind is a price: any new, qualitative leap in development is going to carry a significant price tag in the initial phase, but when large scale production comes on stream the cost will cease to be a factor, especially considering the benefits.